Project 365 - Day 5

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." -Douglas Adams

The year of 2006 was the most wonderful year of my life. It has also been the most scary. This is the first time that I have sat down and put it down all in words. I find myself a nervous about putting it all out there for the world to know, because this is year has made me who I am today. So I am ultimately putting the biggest piece of me on a page for all to see. Why do it then, you say? You see, I am doing this blog for myself more than anything else. And if I am documenting all the little pieces of my life for 365 days this is something that has to be in there somewhere and considering August is right around the corner, there is no time like to present. Let me start at the beginning...
It's December 2005, the 10th day of December to be exact. This is the day that changed my life forever. The heat of the moment and the dysfunction of a piece of latex rerouted my future. The next day, I went to the Dr. and I got the" Morning After Pill" (Plan B). It is an emergency contraceptive that prevents pregnancy after a birth control failure. You can take it up to 72 hours after said failure. I was at about 48. It made me horribly sick for a day but as far as we all knew, it did what it was suppose to do. Then, on January 10th, my mother bought me a pregnancy test after waking up sick a few mornings in a row. The result was immediate and positive. My mother apparently wasn't surprised, I was crying, I thought Donald was going to faint, my Dad was pacing the room like a lion, Jessica was crying, and Justin wanted to celebrate. I can't put my feelings from that moment into words... well I could but they wouldn't be the right words. I can't convey the depth of my feelings of that time in words. I can tell you I felt terrified, and lost, and stupid, disappointed and a disappointment. I was 17 years old, not even a high school graduate, with nothing to offer a child I was going to bring into the world. I continued to go to school and I concealed my pregnancy. Only those very close to me knew my secret. It's not that I was afraid of what people would say about me, those who know me know that that has never mattered to me... I think that I hid it because I didn't want to answer questions about it. I didn't want to flaunt it and boast it because it wasn't something I was proud of. I wasn't proud to be a teenage mother. I just was another statistic.
On May 19th 2006, I walked across the stage in orange heels to receive my high school diploma in the top twenty percent of my class. The top twenty percent graduated first, then continued by all the others in alphabetical order. This is also the day that I didn't hide my now noticeable pregnant belly under a big jacket. My secret was out.
I had this big future planned. I was going to off to University of Florida. I had all these big dreams and the future was bright. My plans were changed now. In the fall when I was suppose to start college, I was going to be having a baby. My due date was September 4th (which was actually labor day that year, what a coincidence, huh?) One night out of the blue in my dining room, Donald got down on one knee and proposed. I said yes. We'd already been together for almost 4 years and we planned on getting married already, but considering the circumstances we just sped up the process. Yep, we had a shotgun wedding. The wedding was set for August 19th.
But my little one threw a wrench in our plans and he decided he wanted to be there for the wedding. On August 9th, 2oo6 at 7:16pm Elijah Adam Lowery was born. He was perfectly healthy even though he was born at 35 weeks gestation. It is a miracle I thank God for every single day of my life. The wedding was still on August 19th as planned but it sure was hectic lol.

So pretty much three of the most important experience of my entire life, of anyone's life!, happened all in the same year. And now that it's almost 4 years later and I'm not so emotionally raw, I look at things much different. Eli was meant to be on this earth exactly when he was put here. After beating two methods of birth control and coming out perfectly healthy at almost 4 weeks early, I know with no doubts that he was meant to be. He is my reason for living. He saved me from myself. Now that I get to see his smiles and hold him in my arms and hear him say, "I know I can always count on you, Mommy" I know that I couldn't imagine my life any other way. So to my Eli, I love you more than you will ever be able to imagine. Just when you think that there is no way I could love you anymore than I do now, I will love you more than that. Thank you for being the light that pulled me out of the dark. To my husband, after almost 8 years I still get butterflies in my tummy. I know that I don't tell you often enough how much I appreciate you, I hope you know how much I do and how proud I am to be yours. And to my family, I am fixing to graduate from college and I couldn't have done it without all your love and all your support. I am sorry that I have made life so different for each and everyone of you too by having to babysit almost everyday and give me a place to live so I can finish school. I am very very blessed to have you to lean on. I am sorry Mama and Daddy if I wasn't quite the daughter that you thought I would be and I didn't exactly fufill the dreams that you had for me. But.. I did the best that I could, and after all I know that is all you've ever asked me to give. I hope I did you proud.

So life hasn't been easy for me. But when things are easy, it's easy to stop growing. I have grown. I am growing. I know now that this is what I am suppose to do with my life. If one day it all flashes before my eyes, at least it will be worth watching.